Translated material
Yanukovych is not afraid of elections
Only politicians can resolve the conflict
Yesterday, alarming rumors spread in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the decree on its dissolution was announced by the country's president on Monday evening . Viktor Yushchenko is allegedly about to introduce direct presidential rule, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is already forming blacklists on his orders. 10-15 thousand supporters of the coalition, led by Speaker Alexander Moroz, staged a demonstration in support of the parliament on the capital's Maidan, paralyzing traffic for a couple of hours. Deputies from the coalition even tried to break into the presidential administration, as Yulia Tymoshenko and her comrades did in 2004. “Orange” women were sexier, but “blue and white” women looked much more respectable. The respectable deputy Lyudmila Kirichenko shook a heavy Bible, calling on the president not to sin during Holy Week. Christian slogans were accompanied by revolutionary singing of the communists.At yesterday's meeting of the Rada, Speaker Moroz called on deputies "not to panic" and gave them a "full guarantee" that their work will continue until 2011. Today, deputies intend to summon to the Rada all security officials, including the Minister of Defense and the acting head of the SBU, who supported the president’s decree on the dissolution of parliament. Communist leader Pyotr Symonenko said that the heads of the SBU and the Ministry of Defense should resign for interfering in the political process. The ruling coalition is outraged that the president gave a political instruction to the prosecutor general to “sort out” the Rada and the government. However, yesterday the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine announced that it would not prosecute the heads of ministries and departments for failure to comply with the presidential decree on the dissolution of parliament until the decision of the Constitutional Court (CC) on this issue. At the same time, the Prosecutor General’s Office also refused to comply with the president’s instructions to check the legality of the Verkhovna Rada resolutions adopted these days, since this is not its responsibility at all.
“Calls to dismiss the security forces come from an excess of emotions,” Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Malinkovich told Vremya Novostey. -- Minister of Defense and current acting the heads of the SBU will simply ignore the meeting of the Rada. Of course, parliament can remove security forces, but it does not have the right to appoint new ones without the president. Such a step would lead to even greater confrontation and make it difficult to find a compromise solution.”
A complex intrigue has woven around the Constitutional Court - the only body that could lead the country out of the political crisis by giving a legal assessment to the presidential decree. The prime minister said that the head of the Constitutional Court, Ivan Dombrovsky, “a decent person whom we trusted,” was resigning due to political pressure. The Presidential Secretariat is putting pressure on Dombrovsky, clarified Regions' Vasily Kiselyov. The president's supporters called this information slander, accusing the prime minister of putting pressure on the Constitutional Court. The judges of the Constitutional Court did not accept Dombrovsky’s resignation, after which he went to the hospital.
“It is unlikely that the conflict between the president and the coalition will be resolved by the Constitutional Court,” Vadim Karasev, head of the Ukrainian Institute of Global Strategies, told VN. “This is a political and legal crisis, which is much broader than purely legal subtleties, and only politicians can resolve the conflict.” “The fact that Dombrovsky and a number of judges appointed with the support of the president were ready to resign suggests that the Constitutional Court is not ready to make purely political decisions. A legal decision can only be made in favor of the Rada,” Ukrainian expert Vladimir Malinkovich told VN. In his opinion, Europeans would like to support the pro-Western Yushchenko, but in Europe itself, in any case, “it is not customary to support illegal actions.”
At yesterday's meeting with Viktor Yushchenko, Viktor Yanukovych offered the president a settlement if the decree on the dissolution of parliament was revoked. In fact, the Rada is ready to fulfill the demands of the presidential ultimatum, due to failure to comply with which it was dissolved. The ruling coalition agrees to suspend its recruitment of deputies from the “orange” factions, and also to revise the law on the cabinet of ministers, which curtails the powers of the president. If Yushchenko retreats, the Rada will “enshrine the provisions of the universal national unity” at the legislative level, which coincides with the president’s pre-election Euro-Atlantic program.
The Presidential Secretariat yesterday insisted on the final and irrevocable dissolution of the Rada. Deputy head of the secretariat Viktor Bondar did not even allow 50 parliamentarians from the coalition to come to the president with conciliatory proposals, citing the fact that they had already lost their parliamentary powers. The emotional outburst of the coalition will last another three to five days, after which everyone will be forced to begin preparing for the elections, Bondar believes. Despite the prime minister's disapproval, the governors ordered district administrations to prepare polling stations for early elections on May 27.
Indeed, yesterday, Viktor Yanukovych, at a meeting with foreign ambassadors, said that if the president does not concede and tension in the country “grows,” he may agree to hold early elections. “We are not afraid of the elections; we are confident of victory,” the prime minister said. The speaker said the same thing at yesterday’s demonstration, emphasizing that he “has no doubt” that the coalition will win.
“Today, all parties to the conflict understand that early elections cannot be avoided. This does not depend on whether or not the coalition will spin the crisis scenario. The only question is the date. Actually, this may be a compromise between the parties,” Vadim Karasev suggested in a conversation with VN. “If the president agrees to withdraw his decree without a verdict from the Constitutional Court, then the coalition may make concessions by agreeing to hold elections in a few months,” notes Vladimir Malinkovich. - The President will be forced to concede on the issue of the election date. The deadlines for the formation of district commissions have already passed. If they include only representatives of the “orange”, Europe will not understand this.”